Revealing the New Testament Letters: From Paul to Pseudo-Peter

Includes the NRSV Bible

More than anything else, the New Testament is a collection of letters: twenty-two of the twenty-seven books are ancient letters. They include letters written by the apostle Paul to specific local congregations or individuals; letters written in the name of Paul, long after his death, to less determinate audiences; letters written by, or in the name of, another prominent apostle (Peter) and brothers of Jesus (James and Jude); as well as anonymous letters (Hebrews and the Johannine epistles). Revealing^® the New Testament Letters is designed to equip students to engage appreciatively, knowledgeably, and critically with each of these ancient letters, understanding its original purpose, its theological message, and its ethical prescriptions. The process whereby these letters were canonized is explained in full, as is the concept of pseudonymity and its prevalence in the ancient world. Paul’s life is reconstructed, and current scholarly approaches to his letters are surveyed. As each New Testament letter is analyzed, any ethical conundrums it throws up for contemporary readers who embrace such values as democracy or gender equality are identified and discussed.

Revealing^® the New Testament Letters aims to be the most accessible introduction to these ancient, often obscure letters available. No prior knowledge whatsoever of the letters, or of the New Testament in general, is presupposed, nor is any familiarity with Christian church life and the biblical knowledge it generates through osmosis. But this introduction does not patronize the student either. Students are not required to accept on the authority of the author any position on any important textual matter independently of the evidence or reasoning that has led to it. The evidence and the arguments are clearly and meticulously laid out, enabling students to draw different conclusions or construct alternative explanations should s/he wish. Ultimately, this introduction is designed to equip the student to become an informed participant in the vigorous, consequential, open-ended debate that is critical scholarship on the foundational texts of Christianity.

As courseware, in addition to the text content, which is as robust as that of traditional textbooks, Revealing^® the New Testament Letters contains integrated resources that no print textbook or etextbook can match. Each biblical chapter-and-verse reference is linked to the text of the New Revised Standard Version. Reading the primary source material thereby becomes an altogether more inviting experience for the student than having to trawl through a print biblical text separate from the textbook. Even extracanonical sources, such as the letters of Ignatius of Antioch, the Letter of Barnabas, Irenaeus’s Against Heresies, or Eusebius’s Church History, are linked to the text when they are referenced. Each technical or potentially unfamiliar term in the text is linked to a glossary definition, another feature that makes this introduction uniquely accessible. Creatively designed activities distributed throughout each module facilitate understanding and retention by the student. Over a thousand images from ancient material culture and the history of biblical reception are also available to the reader and the text is narrated.

About the Author: Stephen D. Moore, Ph.D. (Drew University)

Stephen D. Moore is Edmund S. Janes Professor of New Testament Studies in the Theological School and Graduate Division of Religion at Drew University, Madison, New Jersey. A native of Ireland, he received the Ph.D. in New Testament from the University of Dublin (Trinity College) long ago. He is the author or co-author, editor or co-editor of around two dozen books, including Literary Criticism and the Gospels: The Theoretical Challenge (Yale University Press, 1989); The Postmodern Bible (Yale University Press, 1995); God’s Gym: Divine Male Bodies of the Bible (Routledge, 1996); God’s Beauty Parlor: And Other Queer Spaces in and around the Bible (Stanford University Press, 2001); Empire and Apocalypse: Postcolonialism and the New Testament (Sheffield Phoenix Press, 2006); Mark and Method: New Approaches in Biblical Studies (with Janice Capel Anderson; Fortress Press, 2008, 2nd ed.); The Invention of the Biblical Scholar: A Critical Manifesto (with Yvonne Sherwood; Fortress Press, 2011); and Untold Tales from the Book of Revelation: Sex and Gender, Empire and Ecology (SBL Press, 2014). He has served on the editorial boards of many journals, including the Journal of Biblical Literature. He has been learning from teaching the New Testament for more than thirty years, and his most treasured professional achievements are the teaching awards he has won.